“Redlining” was a legal practice from 1932 to 1964. It directly affected minorities living conditions and housing options. Today, among other factors such as the wage gap and the pricey cost of higher education, redlining continues to affect people of color and other minorities.

During the 1930s, the Federal Housing Administration and the Home Owners Loan Corporation worked together to finance over $120 billion dollars worth of housing. However, they did not make this housing available to minorities. They would purposefully exclude minorities, and even went as far as to mark on a map of where the majority of colored people were, so that way the would not finance homes in that area.

This affects people to this day, as homeowners in the redlined areas have a harder time financing their homes, due to the area being poorer than the surrounding communities. This in turn brings down the value of the entire neighborhood. In these redlined areas, the houses also tend to be more decrepit, and the cost of repairs become more expensive.

However, redlining isn’t the only reason minorities are having a hard time. A study done by the Survey of Consumer Finances shows that there is a wage gap between minorities and their white counterparts. The wage gap refers to the phenomenon where one person gets paid less than another due to prejudice rather than skill or adequacy.

With this gap in pay, it makes it a lot harder to attend college in hopes of a higher education. With the price of tuition on the rise, it’s becoming harder and harder for poor people to climb out of their predicament.

Redlining, coupled with the wage gap and pricey education, makes it extremely hard for minorities to pull out of this poor crisis. Solving this issue would not happen quickly, and there are more factors that go into poverty than most people realize, but a good place to start would be to make education more affordable. Also, encouraging affordable houses in nicer areas, and fixing up less desirable areas would be a great place to start.

916 Ink, a non-profit organization, is seeking youth-written contributions as they work to compile a comic book about South Sacramento and its history. The comic book title is “How Did We Get Here?” and should contain 1-2 pages of the writer’s personal experience, or the experience of someone who has lived in South Sac. 916 Ink is paying $50 for narratives from youth, and the deadline is February 23rd. Entries need to be emailed along with release forms for youth.

916 Ink free writing journal

916 Ink is a non-profit organization that establishes writing classes for children and teens. Their goal with this project is to compile a comic book about all the children’s and teen’s stories that they send in.

“We are collecting local narratives of how discriminatory land use, housing, and transportation policies and investments resulted in segregation, fewer opportunities for low-income communities and communities of color, and poorer health outcomes in specific neighborhoods.” Said Nikki, Cardoza, Director of Programming.

Entries are not limited to just personal experiences. People who want to enter can interview others about their experiences in South Sacramento as well as give their own. The entry can be about policies in South Sac that has affected them, the history of South Sac, and anything else that has shaped South Sacramento, and its people. Though the stories can be positive, they mainly want to focus on the adverse aspects of South Sacramento, focusing on policies that have discriminated against people.

916 Ink classroom guild-lines

“Each comic book will be published and distributed locally,” says Nikki Cardoza, Director of Programming from 916 Ink, “And then we hope that all 5 comics will eventually be combined into an anthology the shows how public policies throughout the last 100 years have created communities in different areas of California.”

The comic book may not contain all the stories they receive, but all who enter will get a $50 cash card. The deadline is due February 23rd, and the comic will be available to buy August of 2017.